William Henry Fox Talbot

Sketch by Talbot

 

Sketch of Lake Como  -  Talbot  -  1833

Sketch of Lake Como in Italy by Talbot  -  October 1833

©  Reproduced from the National Museum of Photography, Film and Television collection,
by courtesy of the Science and Society Picture Library.

 

Sketch by Talbot

Sketch by Talbot

1833

Talbot was married in 1832 but pressure of work caused him to delay his honeymoon until the following year, when he visited Lake Como in Italy.  Here, he used a camera lucida to aid his sketching, but was not satisfied with the results.  The sketch above was made on 5 October 1833.

So Talbot determined to find a way to 'fix' the image on paper.  He experimented achieving success over the next few years.  He announced his discovery to the Royal Institution in London in January 1839, prompted to do so by hearing that Daguerre's announcement his discovery of the Daguerreotype.

In fact, Daguerre's discovery, the Daguerreotype, created a single image on metal, whereas Talbot's discovery was a negative/positive process which allowed multiple images to be created from a single negative.

 

 

William Henry Fox Talbot

Discovery of Photography

Life in England

Connections with Edinbrugh

Correspondence

Photos, Sketches and Engravings

Pencil of Nature

 

 

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